Recent Posts

2451

General Software Discussion / Re: Best free firewall for Windows?

« Last post by Tuxman on October 24, 2009, 06:24 PM »

I am also thinking to turn my laptop into a firewall with internet sharing. Would that be a good solution?

-kartal (October 24, 2009, 06:10 PM)

If it only works as a firewall and any other internet devices are behind it: Yep. That's how a firewall works.

Actually one of the things I am really wanting is to see which application is trying to connect outside.

-kartal (October 24, 2009, 06:10 PM)

Trojans and worms usually run on your user account. What should keep them away from registering themselves in your "firewall" software?
Another thing that can't be solved this way... for that, I'd recommend TcpView (sysinternals.com) or similar software. Port blockers are not made for that.

I think most of these windows firewalls show that.

-kartal (October 24, 2009, 06:10 PM)

There is no Windows firewall.

Is there such thing under linux?

-kartal (October 24, 2009, 06:10 PM)

I don't actually hope so. Linux users don't tend to install anything anyone says of it's great.

2452

General Software Discussion / Re: Do you use ac'tivAid? Which extensions?

« Last post by Tuxman on October 24, 2009, 05:27 PM »

AFAICS it is stable. Latest changes are only some internal updates. I haven't experienced "major" problems with it.
The "old" (English, German and French) bug tracker - http://activaid.rumborak.de - is still used for bug reports, however.

The application itself is German and English. They didn't remove the English strings, don't worry.  

2453

General Software Discussion / Re: Best free firewall for Windows?

« Last post by Tuxman on October 24, 2009, 04:07 PM »

There is no "best firewall for Windows". Packet filters don't really make sense. An application which is intended to protect your system against attacks from outside can N E V E R work when it works on the computer you want to protect.

Don't use that stuff. It doesn't make sense at all.

2454

General Software Discussion / Re: Do you use ac'tivAid? Which extensions?

« Last post by Tuxman on October 24, 2009, 04:04 PM »

Meanwhile, the original ac'tivAid author abandoned his project. It is continued by Michael Telgkamp, if anyone is interested... I've been using ac'tivAid since v0.9x, it didn't even have a GUI back then.



On topic:
I currently use these:

• AutoShutdown
  Win+Q to shut down now or in a couple of minutes is one of the essential things for me, especially when I'm in a hurry.
• FileRenamer
  Yep, most file managers do this. But this one does everything I need. So why should I use something other?
• HotStrings
  Currently only used for fun, but sometimes I use it for serious stuff, like automatically replacing "rg" with "Regards, <name>".
• LeoTooltip
  As you might know, English is not my native language. Sometimes I need to look up a word here to talk to you. Pressing a shortcut is the easiest way for that, right?
• NewFolder
  Again, most file managers already know a hotkey to create a new folder. However, this extension has some nice additions like automatically creating subfolders and moving selected files there instantly.
• QuickNote
  Why should I use Notepad for that?
• RemapKeys
  CapsLock be gone!
• UserHotkeys
  My command prompt is on Ctrl-Alt-Space, my scanner on Win+S. It really improves my computer usage.
• Volume Control
  (Stupid loudness war.)
• WindowsControl
  Most things can also be done with tools like the Actual Window Manager. But they aren't free. 

2455

Developer's Corner / Re: Inside Windows 7 Redux

« Last post by Tuxman on October 24, 2009, 07:10 AM »

Mark Russinovich rocks. Simple as that. There's not much stuff in MS TechNet that beats his Sysinternals blog. 

2456

Living Room / Re: What are you waiting for?

« Last post by Tuxman on October 24, 2009, 07:05 AM »

Well, there is MSDNAA for ppl like me. 

2457

General Software Discussion / Re: Who should judge Win7's success?

« Last post by Tuxman on October 23, 2009, 10:15 AM »

Damn. One less reason.

2458

General Software Discussion / Re: Anybody Here Use SeaMonkey (2.0)?

« Last post by Tuxman on October 23, 2009, 09:10 AM »

My Firefox extension works with SeaMonkey. 
Except for that, I mainly use Fx/Tb. The "added convenience of an integrated solution" doesn't really satisfy me, as it is rather unflexible indeed.

2459

General Software Discussion / Re: Features removed from Win7 - do we miss them?

« Last post by Tuxman on October 22, 2009, 01:43 PM »

The Classic Start Menu can most likely be replaced by third party applications.

-Curt (October 22, 2009, 05:02 AM)

Shareware though.

2460

General Software Discussion / Re: Features removed from Win7 - do we miss them?

« Last post by Tuxman on October 22, 2009, 03:17 AM »

ClearType cannot be turned off entirely in order for the user interface font

"It's not a bug, it's a feature"? Awful on better resolutions.

Classic Start menu

The reason for me not to install Windows 7.

That's it, basically...

2461

Living Room / Re: What are you waiting for?

« Last post by Tuxman on October 21, 2009, 02:58 PM »

Christmas holidays. Well, only the holidays, of course. 

2462

General Software Discussion / Re: File Managers! Windows Explorer replacement! Come one, come all...

« Last post by Tuxman on October 20, 2009, 04:48 PM »

Office 2007... not worth a single cent. 

However, back to topic: Right, a file manager is the most-used application on most systems. But does that mean that it automatically has to be more expensive than other, maybe even more sophisticated applications on your system?

If a price would depend on the product's usage, I wonder if the Firefox guys were millionaires...

personally I don't see $75USD value in it

At least you got my point here.

2463

General Software Discussion / Re: Who should judge Win7's success?

« Last post by Tuxman on October 20, 2009, 04:38 PM »

Vista was the first OS which made me think that Explorer with QTTabBar doesn't nearly fit my needs... 

2464

General Software Discussion / Re: File Managers! Windows Explorer replacement! Come one, come all...

« Last post by Tuxman on October 20, 2009, 04:22 PM »

Sure, but it is just a file manager (although a good one indeed). $74.95 (still a quite high value in real money) is too much IMHO.
He could ofc take the double of that, and someone could willingly pay that. But ... come on: $74.95 for a file manager?!

(Yep, I take the lifetime license as my point here. To me, all other license types are just paid trials.)

2465

General Software Discussion / Re: File Managers! Windows Explorer replacement! Come one, come all...

« Last post by Tuxman on October 20, 2009, 03:54 PM »

Another reason to spend money for another file manager. Don't support DOpus-like capitalism. 

2466

General Software Discussion / Re: The Best Of: text editors

« Last post by Tuxman on October 20, 2009, 10:18 AM »

And truly multiplatform.

-urlwolf (October 20, 2009, 10:16 AM)

Java is just as multiplatform as C/C++. No libs, no execution. 

I haven't had to touch a single config file since moving to jedit. With vim, I was tweaking my vimrc every day.

-urlwolf (October 20, 2009, 10:16 AM)

I haven't touched my vimrc for weeks now. But I could tweak it a lot more, that's the point.

2467

General Software Discussion / Re: The Best Of: text editors

« Last post by Tuxman on October 20, 2009, 10:17 AM »

There's nothing unusual, nothing out of place about the FireFox UI.

-tranglos (October 20, 2009, 08:10 AM)

Depends. You can turn off the menu bar (not "usual" on Windows), you can place everything anywhere (same), and "native" skins are supported since v3, before they were quite... well... "unusual".

2468

General Software Discussion / Re: The Best Of: text editors

« Last post by Tuxman on October 20, 2009, 07:26 AM »

Why should a multi-platform application (Vim, eclipse, ...) act like a Windows application?

2469

General Software Discussion / Re: Best password manager?

« Last post by Tuxman on October 19, 2009, 03:11 PM »

So you won't be able to log in anywhere on another computer?

2470

General Software Discussion / Re: Best password manager?

« Last post by Tuxman on October 19, 2009, 02:11 PM »

Best password manager is your brain. Don't leave it to an app. You might end up being left when you completely forgot your passwords yourself.

2471

General Software Discussion / Re: 10 things to do after installing Linux

« Last post by Tuxman on October 19, 2009, 12:24 PM »

Ubuntu is an easier to use version of Debian.

-Innuendo (October 19, 2009, 12:20 PM)

"Stripped down" doesn't necessarily imply "easier to use".

1 - Because newbies want to start the computer, get their mp3s from their windows machine and listen to them right away.
2 - Because newbies want to start the computer, insert a divx and see it right away.
3 - Because newbies want to start their computer, open a window and have the desktop effects right away (even if they have an nvidia graphics card).

-jgpaiva (October 19, 2009, 12:21 PM)

All necessary software can easily be installed during the Debian installation process. What's wrong with that?

2472

General Software Discussion / Re: 10 things to do after installing Linux

« Last post by Tuxman on October 19, 2009, 11:58 AM »

Linux Mint? That greenish Ubuntu derivative?
Thus: That greenish ((Debian derivative) derivative)?

Why not using the original Debian instead?

However, what to do after installing any Linux really depends on what you actually want to do ...

2473

General Software Discussion / Re: The Best Of: text editors

« Last post by Tuxman on October 19, 2009, 11:13 AM »

Which toolbars?

-f0dder (October 19, 2009, 11:03 AM)

I was talking about UE this time ...

However:

*shrug*

2474

General Software Discussion / Re: The Best Of: text editors

« Last post by Tuxman on October 19, 2009, 10:49 AM »

... bloated?

I can't see the attractiveness in dozens of toolbars. I don't even need a single one.

2475

General Software Discussion / Re: The Best Of: text editors

« Last post by Tuxman on October 19, 2009, 10:33 AM »

Standard install of gvim vs standard install of Notepad++

-f0dder (October 19, 2009, 10:24 AM)

You can easily make N++ bloated by using too many plug-ins. You can easily keep your Vim tiny and fast by setting the right options (no colors, vi compatibility and stuff). I must confess, however, that I don't have any benchmarks about that. But I'm sure that Vim is the fastest might-be-used-as-an-IDE editor out there.

it's not the end-all-be-all perfect tool for everybody.

-f0dder (October 19, 2009, 10:24 AM)

If there was such a thing, no-one would need any other editor, right? That's the great thing about perfectness: There is always a thing that comes closer to it.